Why Medical Apps Are Gaining Favor Among Physicians: Insights from Recent Surveys

As medical technology continues to advance, physicians are relying on mobile technologies in the workplace more than ever before. Many institutions have conducted large-scale surveys to examine how doctors integrate smartphones into their clinical practice and to forecast trends in medical applications over the coming years.

Last month, VCBeat compiledHealthTap's Rankings of Dozens of Medical Apps, listing the healthcare apps most favored by physicians, with a focus on ranking niche apps in the internet healthcare sector. Subsequently, MedData Group, a medical marketing firm based in Topsfield, conducted a survey of 375 physicians this January. What insights did their survey reveal? VCBeat has compiled the details as follows:

According to the survey, more than 80% of surveyed U.S. physicians use mobile apps or access professional content on mobile devices for work, with a significant increase compared to a year ago.

Why Adopt Apps? In surveys, physicians indicated that using apps can improve patient care and communication, as well as enhance work efficiency.

The findings highlight that health IT services are accelerating adoption among physicians, patients, and companies, a trend that has also attracted the attention of investment firms. According to StartUp Health’s annual report, digital health ventures raised a total of $6.5 billion in financing in 2014, representing a 125% increase from 2013.

As is well known, healthcare is a traditional industry characterized by slow progress. However, MedData’s report indicates that physicians are driving this transformation. The chart below shows that only 16% of surveyed physicians reported not using mobile applications, down from 33% in 2013.

Another difference compared to 2013 is that physicians place greater emphasis on the quality and continuity of care, rather than on considerations of medical costs.

MedData’s survey sought to identify which apps physicians use on their mobile devices and what content they read. As shown in the chart below, articles on clinical treatment and drug information are highly favored by physicians, ranking at the top of the list. Nevertheless, 21% of physicians reported that they do not read professional articles on their mobile devices.

In 2014, surveys indicated that the trends physicians were most concerned with were how to access electronic health records (EHRs) via mobile devices and how apps handled drug interactions. This year is different: physicians predict that the most popular healthcare apps in 2015 will be those for electronic prescriptions, which import prescription information into mobile devices and transmit it to pharmacies. These will be followed by apps for laboratory or imaging tests, and then medication-related apps.

What the survey failed to address is the suspicion that many physicians are utilizing broader “health” connectivity systems, such as electronic medical records, health monitoring platforms, patient communication communities, and telepresence technologies. However, the mobile components of such systems appear to be gaining widespread acceptance.

(To stay updated on the latest news about internet healthcare startups, please follow VCBeat’s WeChat official account: vcbeat. We also welcome you to engage with us on topics of interest, contact us via WeChat, and share your startup projects or related research insights.)